The Effects of Humidity and Surface Free Energy on Adhesion Force between AFM Tip and a Silane Self-Assembled Monolayer Film

Published

February 17, 2010

Author(s)

Chien-Chao Huang, Lijiang Chen, , Xiaohong Gu, Minhua Zhao, Tinh Nguyen, Sanboh Lee

Abstract

The relationship between AFM probe-sample adhesion force and relative humidity (RH) at five different levels of surface free energy (γs) of an organic self-assembled monolayer (SAM) has been investigated. Different γs levels were achieved by exposing a patterned SiO2/CH3-terminated octyldimethylchlorosilane (ODS) SAM sample to an ultraviolet (UV)/ozone atmosphere. A model consisting of the Laplace-Kelvin theory for capillary condensation for nano-size probe and probe-sample molecular interaction was derived to describe the adhesion force as a function of RH from 25 % to 90 % for different SAM γs values. The equations were solved analytically using an equivalent curvature of the probe tip shape. Experimental results show that the adhesion force increases slightly with RH for nonpolar SAM. However, for polar SAM surfaces, it increases at first, reaches a maximum, and then decreases. Both the rate of increase and the maximum of the adhesion force with humidity are γs-dependent, which is in good agreement with theoretical prediction. The large rise in the adhesion force in this RH range is due to the capillary force.

Citation

Journal of Materials Research

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

AFM, adhesion force, chemical property, relative humidity, surface free energy, SAM

Citation

Huang, C. and chen, L. (2010), The Effects of Humidity and Surface Free Energy on Adhesion Force between AFM Tip and a Silane Self-Assembled Monolayer Film, Journal of Materials Research (Accessed May 10, 2026)

Additional citation formats